


An Arrow

by Balthuza



Category: Shards of the Sun
Genre: Gen, I AM SORRY?, M/M, also pretty, angsty? with a happy ending, more or less, of sorts, oh no, snow is important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balthuza/pseuds/Balthuza
Summary: For the Keeper everything begins and ends with an arrow.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Strzał](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292112) by [Balthuza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balthuza/pseuds/Balthuza). 



For the Keeper everything begins and ends with an arrow.

He’s young (can’t remember ever feeling this young), when he runs away for the last time. He’s running through the narrow streets of the city, trying to lose the angry crowd. The hot stone burns his soles. A laundry line follows him like a tail, caught on a horn a moment before. It takes him three tries to get rid of it.

When the roar of the crowd closes in he takes the hot air in deep, and with the last pang of adrenaline runs as fast as he can.

Later he won’t remember his mother’s empty gaze or the shining arrow, cutting the air like a knife.

He’ll forget the way arrowhead cuts his cheek and blooms with his blood, forget the strange skies and, finally, about the arrow itself, carrying him like a comet tail into the world that is his only.  
The first time he sees snow he thinks this is what magic is.

He never had a pet but imagines it  
He and the place, yet to be named, learn each other, both willing to change and compromise.

The balance is everything.

The Keeper gives a piece of himself to the Home and the Home offers the same, a pact of blood and good intentions.  
As the time goes on, others come. The Keeper offer them a piece of himself, but not the Home. They find it running - sometimes away from something, sometimes just to get away from themselves.

Some find what they were looking for and leave, taking a his piece with them.  
Some find, what they were looking for and pray the universe never finds out.

Slowly, he re-learns how to live, entrusting himself to those, whose survival depends on him.  
When Grifaris enters his life, he’s almost as breathtaking as the snow.

In the middle of the night he whispers the secret of his tokens into the warmth of his neck and he wakes up alone.

When he finally enters the fray, he can feel his heart speed up, fluttering in his chest like a caged bird. The place where his arm shattered like glass still bleeds, his ribcage still seems to vibrate from where the shield was struck. 

He sees panic, he sees desperation, and he sees the symbols, slowly sucking out the power from the pacts he made.

He sees the arrow that could end it all, and he sees the fear in Grifaris’ eyes when he realises he’d won.

The Keeper draws in the last breath, the air cold like the snow, and breaks the first pact.

In the fraction of a second that for him is nearly infinite, the Home dies when the Keeper takes back what he has offered.

For a moment, he stands in place that he didn’t see for 30 years. The hot stone burns his soles.   
The Keeper draws in a deep breath, filling his lungs with hot air and the smells of a city, and wonders what now.

His heartbeat, louder in his ears than the street, is full of relief and fear.


End file.
